


Sepia

by In_Cogito



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: AU of an AU, Blood, Burying a body together, Cabin, Camping, DP/DR, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Emotional Whump, Episode: s02e06 Head Case, Gen, Good Parent Martin Whitly, Malcolm Whitly Needs a Hug, Martin Whitly Needs a Hug, Murder, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts, Whump, father/son bonding, please read responsibly, please read the tags, psychiatric hospital, psychological whump, season 2 episode 6, they both get a hug, woods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 00:46:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30131406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/In_Cogito/pseuds/In_Cogito
Summary: There he was. His boy. Light blue disposable scrubs, grey long sleeve underneath.  A green paper bracelet hung on his wrist.  The bruise on the right side of his head- from that cursed fall at the old, rundown building- had gone from vaguely purple to a sickly yellow.  Malcolm sat cross-legged on the hospital bed, hands in his lap and shoulders slouched.  Gone was the light in his eyes.  His usual “Hi dad” sounded tired and heavy.  Whether it was the drugs or something else, Martin couldn’t tell.  He pulled up a chair and made himself comfortable, seeing him for the first time since his episode at the Kenmir hotel.Who would have thought it would ever come to this?
Relationships: Malcolm Bright & Martin Whitly
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	Sepia

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, a couple of things!
> 
> 1\. Don't kill people. It's not a good thing. 
> 
> 2\. Don't lie your way out of a psychiatric hospital. 
> 
> 3\. Don't be a hero. If you or a loved one are suffering some serious mental health issues, contact a professional. 
> 
> Warning: This fic is going to be touching upon some dark topics such as DP/DR and suicidal ideation. It also features a graphic depiction or murder. Readers, do treat with caution! And if you feel comfortable continuing from here, then by all means! Enjoy!

The days were getting longer by now. Not warmer, though. Not yet. Last Martin checked that wouldn’t be coming until later in the week. 

God, thinking about the weather. That was how he knew he didn’t want to think about the state of things, even as he was on his way to the hospital. Martin Whitly let out a long, frustrated huff and smeared his hand over his face. It was whatever. The taxi driver paid no mind and, really, there was no way he would miss this. No matter how painful. 

North Haven General Hospital was an ordinary hospital. Emergency room, waiting room, visiting hours, beige walls, the odd painting here or religious paraphernalia there. Teal curtains, character printed scrubs for the nurses. And a behavioral health unit (as they were calling it these days) up on the 12th floor. Visitors had to call ahead of time, schedule a visit, pick up a visitor’s bracelet at the front desk and be escorted to a particular room. No gifts. No food. And patients had the right to refuse visits. Those were the rules, according to the staff. 

Martin looked around as he followed one of the day nurses and struggled to shrug off the oddness of the place. Barren walls. Slanted door knobs. Weighted chairs. Whispered chatter filtered in through the air and Martin could hear the distinct shuffle of a deck of cards from the day room. In one of the furthest rooms someone was singing an upbeat pop tune with just enough energy to be recognizable. Maybe they were on the up and up. Good thing at least one of them was.

“Here we are. Unit C2.” A woman in purple scrubs and her hair in a tight bun leaned in the open doorway of one of the units and knocked on the door frame. “Malcolm? You have a visitor.”

There was no response. Martin didn’t have the heart to lean around and try to take a peek. Yes, he was here to see his son. That didn’t mean it was going to be easy. 

“Alright, Mr. Whitly, you’re good to go. Malcolm’s been pretty docile so far. Don’t be surprised if it seems like he doesn’t have that much energy. Not everyone does when they first come here. I can give you two some privacy, but I will be popping in here and there. Just to make sure things are going smoothly and you two are still, you know, there. It’s all just to make sure everyone is safe and still where they should be.”

The man nodded and muttered a quick “thank you.” The nurse left and Martin stepped inside. There he was. His boy. Light blue disposable scrubs, grey long sleeve underneath. A green paper bracelet hung on his wrist. The bruise on the right side of his head- from that cursed fall at the old, rundown building- had gone from vaguely purple to a sickly yellow. Malcolm sat cross-legged on the hospital bed, hands in his lap and shoulders slouched. Gone was the light in his eyes. His usual “Hi dad” sounded tired and heavy. Whether it was the drugs or something else, Martin couldn’t tell. He pulled up a chair and made himself comfortable, seeing him for the first time since his episode at the Kenmir hotel. 

Who would have thought it would ever come to this? 

Well, it wasn’t for him to say. The psychotic break was unexpected, certainly. Worrisome, more than anything. Martin spent many hours talking to his sweet Jessica about what to do next and whether or not things would be ok after something like that. And with a heavy heart she, too, agreed that hospital admission was necessary. (Ainsley kept a cool head and didn’t judge, bless her heart.) Speaking of which, family wasn’t a bad place to start. Malcolm needed to know that no matter what, he had people who loved him and would support him however he needed. That he didn’t have to pick up the pieces alone. And didn’t Ainlsey have that joke about the farmer in his field the other day? It was so corny that it’d put a smile on anyone’s face. The father opened his mouth-

“Dani left me.”

And his words died immediately. “. . . Oh. Son, I’m so sorry.” 

Malcolm shrugged. “I told her to. She deserves better.”

. . . Odd. But he wasn’t in his right mind at the moment. Maybe Martin could flag her down and convince her to change her mind. Touch base with J.T., with or without the game of golf. Being alone wasn’t good for Malcolm, not in this state. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. I’m fine. I don’t need to.” 

Martin swallowed. Now _that_ was its own kind of concerning. Malcolm stopped talking. That is, he stopped communicating. Sat there like a once open book bolted shut. And then there were times where the young man would just shut down completely. No words. He stared at a spot on the mattress. 

“It’s . . . whatever. She’s gone now. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“. . . Does it matter to you? We all saw how you two were together. Dani was good for you and she was there for a big part of your life. I find it hard to believe that it came to an end just like that.” 

He looked away and clenched a fist. “You can’t love someone who’s dead.”

You can’t love someone who’s dead. Cold dread coiled in Martin’s stomach. At best that was an unaccounted body. At worst, that was a tragedy that his son had to sit and watch. “Who’s dead?”

“You don’t have to ask. You’re in my head. You already know.”

A quick glance over the elder man’s shoulder told him that the nurse wasn’t going to be coming back as soon as he’d hoped. “Malcolm, you’re not making any sense.”

“I died in that elevator shaft,” he replied plainly. “None of this is real. It’s . . . None of this is real.” 

They say you always see your kids as the children they once were. Not necessarily the adults they will one day become or the adults they already are. Sure, kids are nothing but light and joy and potential. No one wants to see them hurt or upset or, God forbid, abused and neglected. Irritating and needy as the may be sometimes (or often) be, a parent would want to help. Help them learn, help them grow, take away the pain in whatever way they could or give their child the strength to push through until they could do it on their own. 

_“I’m still there. I’m still in the bottom of the elevator shaft. This is all in my head!”_

Even when things didn’t make much sense. 

_“I’ve been, uh, encoding. Processing information. I have all the pieces in my mind, it’s just trying to put them together!”_

_“Oh my God! My subconscious has been screaming at me this whole time! I’ve been seeing swans_ everywhere _!”_

_“They were signals from my brain.”_

No matter how dark or hopeless the situation seemed. 

“ _I died in that elevator shaft. None of this is real.”_

But what was a father supposed to say to that? How does a father help when his child stares into the void and loses himself in it?

Malcolm turned his head away to stare out the window. “Go away. I don’t have anything more to give you.” 

And that was that. Two minutes of his boy sitting there like an inanimate object, of Martin trying and failing to get more out of him. The nurse walked up to politely let him know that it wasn’t going to work. Not today. Maybe tomorrow, who knew? Chin up. She urged Martin to try again next time and give his boy some space as though she knew exactly what to do. 

* * *

“. . . Alright. Thank you, Dr. Hill.” Pause. “No, I-” Martin sighed. “The brain is a tricky thing. That wasn’t anything people didn’t know already. I wasn’t looking for a cure, just, you know. Trying to get some direction, see if there’s anything I can do. If you don’t have a solid answer, then that’s alright.” Pause. “Of course. Thank you, Doctor. Bye.” 

Martin tapped the screen three times before he could get the call to end. Smart phones. What a joke. What the hell was wrong with normal phone buttons? He tossed the device on top of an open boon and leaned back in his old office chair, the wood and springs creaking beneath him. Hours locked up in his basement office and he finally cracked and made a call. Dr. Hill wasn’t quite a friend. More like an ex-classmate who Martin had only shared a couple of college freshman classes with. Maybe they had a group project together at some point. Neither of them owed the other anything, but a neurologist would have answers that a google search just couldn’t provide. Namely, answers regarding the link between psychosis and head trauma. Which there _was_ a link, particularly if there happened to be damage to the frontal or temporal lobes of the brain. Epilepsy, mood disorders. Schizophrenic individuals sometimes had a history of traumatic brain injury and personalities could change completely, as was the case with the one and only Phineas Gage. 

But could traumatic brain injury lead someone to believe that the world they lived in was not real? 

Martin pushed himself away from the desk and stood up, spine and other joints popping with the motion. A copy of the DSM-V sat open on the desk amid a mess of yellowed notes from his college classes. The Dell and HP PC setup sat unused, screensaver alight with winding, neon-colored pipes. Perhaps it was not a direct link. While damage to the temporal or frontal lobes could cause paranoia, for example, a brain injury might not directly cause such extreme changes in one’s perception of the world they lived in. And if they did, chances were that it was a mostly psychological shift. After all, mental illness was all in the head in much the same way that sepsis was all in the blood or asthma was all in the lungs.

In short something happened to his boy. Something serious. Something traumatic, something that would leave him damaged for years to come. Malcolm was hurting and the father didn’t know how to help, not even after hours upon hours of searching. 

His eyes drifted across the room and fell on the old chest in the corner of his basement office, buckles and handles just barely visible under the stack of junk that had collected on top. Sure. Some release might help clear his head. But not now. He hadn’t the heart. 

* * *

One moment they were talking, the same as before. The next the chairs and table had been overthrown, Malcolm laying on the floor under the weight of three hospital techs as a needle went into his rear. Martin didn’t get to catch his breath until after the tranquilizer had started to work and his son’s rabid flailing died under the chemical spell. 

He reached up and dabbed his fingertips to the corner of his mouth. Sure enough, he was bleeding. 

That was half an hour ago. That was one long talk with the psych ward doctor ago. That was a circle walked into the floor, an eternity in a chair and a trip to the hospital cafe ago. Black coffee sat cold and stale in the styrofoam cup in his hands. His mouth twinged like a persistent bitch. He didn’t even think he could get up out of the plastic chair the weight of it all was so heavy. For the longest time all he could do was stare. Stare at the floor, at the blue painted walls, out the large windows for cafe customers to look out of. 

He needed to be honest about the state of things. In the end it didn’t matter who said what or who crossed what line. The man fished out his smartphone, went to the call logs, tapped on the most recent number, and held the phone up to his ear.

The phone rang. He waited patiently. Painfully. 

_“Hello?”_

“Jessica, it’s me.”

_“Martin! What happened? How is he?”_

“Not good. He’s gone even deeper into the delusion.” Terribly so. Had taken to smashing his head into the wall just to feel something, to “shut it off” as he explained when questioned about the new bruise in the middle of his forehead. “He’s starting to act out. The doctors are recommending that we think about transferring him to a long term facility. Claremont, Bedford, Waverly. I don’t know. One of those places.” 

She gasped, speechless. Martin didn’t know what to say. The whole . . . depersonalization or derealization business. It had been explained to him multiple times. He still struggled to wrap his head round it, but the basic idea seemed to be that it came from anxiety. A panic response that went on for too long, persisted until long after danger had been averted. But that alone didn’t drive someone to violence, did it? There had to be more to the story. 

“I think we need to try something else before they transfer him.”

 _“Absolutely not!”_

“Not to mention the fact that the insurance it running out-”

_“Then I’ll pay out of pocket! For as long as he needs it! I don’t care how much, I’ll do it! I have the means to do it!”_

“He’s not going to sit and rot in a cell with the criminally insane!” No, he’d never wish something so terrible on anyone. Martin’s chest tightened, but he kept going in a harsh whisper. “Look, I can’t believe I’m saying this- _as a doctor_ \- but I’m beginning to think that medicine isn’t the answer. At least not by itself.”

_“What, do psych wards not do therapy anymore?”_

“They do. That’s not what I mean.”

_“Martin, will you please just spit it out already?”_

“I’m getting him out of here. I don’t care how. But he can’t be here anymore. It’s not gonna help. They’re not helping.”

There was a heavy, palpable pause. Jessica’s voice came out small and lost. _“What?”_

“It’s not that I don’t trust this place. Not gonna lie, I’m getting there. But . . . It’s bad, Jess. It’s bad. And it goes deep. Too deep for these guys to know what to do with. I don’t know if pills and therapy are going to be enough for this one.” 

_I died in that elevator shaft_ , he’d said. Malcolm’s problem wasn’t just mental. It had to have been psychological. Maybe even spiritual. And Martin couldn’t risk him being stuck with “treatments” that would only shut him up rather than help him.

_“I don’t know if that’s safe.”_

“I know! But I wouldn’t be suggesting it on a whim! Medicine is my scripture, Jessica, you know this! And it’s not working out right now and I’m _afraid_ for him.”

No protest. She knew he was right. She felt the same way. 

“I’ll take him to the cabin,” he said. “We’ll get away from it all. He’ll have a reminder of where he comes from and who cares about him. Even if I have to put him in another ward afterwards, maybe . . . I don’t know. Maybe he can find whatever he thinks he’s missing before going back. Because what he needs right now . . . I hate to say it, but I don’t think it’s here.” 

_“Martin, do you hear yourself right now?”_

“I do. I know how it sounds. Just trust me on this, Jess. I’ll keep an eye on him. He’ll have his meds and he’ll be safe and . . .” Martin swallowed. “And he’ll be able to talk to me. No matter what it is.” 

He’d be able to talk to his father, someone who loved him before he was born and who knew him his entire life. To someone he had done more for than few other people. To someone who knew the way back home and could hold that light in the darkness no matter what. And who wouldn’t leave, even if the night never ended or the sun never rose again. 

“I want our boy back, too.”

Jessica sobbed on the other end of the line, miles out of Martin’s reach and out of any physical comfort he could give her. Pretty words. A promise and shaky means with which to keep it. An outline of a plan and a utopian happy ending. That was all he had. 

“No matter what happens, everything is going to be ok. You have my word.” 

The call came to an end shortly after and Martin started to form a plan. An awful plan, sure, but hey. He was already going to hell anyways. What’s another indiscretion on the way down, especially if it was for the greater good?

* * *

Martin was not a perfect man. If he was, then he would have been able to put the whole murder business behind him for good. Instead he kept trying to juggle and cheat. He’d already had a close enough call when Malcolm called that cop as a ten-year-old, but no. It wasn’t enough. Like an addict who needed another hit, an adrenaline junkie who just couldn’t get enough, he kept coming back. Crawling, charging, sneaking in and out of the alleyways and looking over his shoulder for a new target. Another burst of dopamine. He’d even dreamt of his own intervention and carried on with the habit as though he didn’t know better. 

That wasn’t to say he didn’t try to quit. He did. But cold turkey didn’t quite do it for him, either. Without blood and flesh, the world just didn’t seem as bright or colorful. 

The old man went to Queens at around one the morning. Walked in and out of the alley ways, didn’t flinch when gunshots rang out in the darkness nearby. Kicked the odd can or empty beer bottle that happened to be laying in his path. His late night stroll was interrupted when he tripped over the skinny, grimey ankle of a woman who fell asleep on a bed of rancid trash bags. She groaned, scratched at her stomach, and didn’t stir beyond that. 

He looked left. And then right. The street lamp above him shorted out at that moment and he took it as a sign. Yes, she would do. No one would miss her. He faced the wall of the nearby apartment complex and produced a bottle with a dropped and an old handkerchief. A more generous dosage would do this time around. This was for an adult, after all. Not a child. 

(He was still appalled that he did that to someone he was supposed to love.) 

It was too late for regret. The preparations were already under way. He’d already gotten a hold of his son again and convinced him to lie his way out of the ward. At this point, it was his only chance of escape. The boy didn’t deserve to rot in a cell funded by meager tax dollars and subject to greater cuts in funding. 

Not to mention that he had found a likely candidate just now. A test subject to, hopefully, have and not need. 

The man straddled her and held the handkerchief over her nose and mouth. She breathed once in her sleep. And her fight, while belated, came anyways. Her eyes flew open and her arms surged up to his torso, grabbing and clawing and Martin’s coat. But it was no good. He didn’t budge. The battle had been won before they’d even started. 

“Sorry, ma’am. Nothing personal.” 

And the woman stopped flailing. 

* * *

“Hey. Malcolm. Wake up.”

The young man blinked awake with a gentle tap on the shoulder. He straightened up ever so slightly from his spot in the passenger seat, curled fist coming away from the yellow bruise in the middle of his forehead, and looked out at their surroundings. Half past noon and they’d finally arrived. They might have made it to the cabin earlier if they didn’t stop for gas and the outdoor goods store. But really? Who was keeping track? Who was keeping time? Had a place to go or to be? They had to make the stop anyways, especially since there was no way anyone could properly go camping in a three piece suit. 

At least the jeans and green flannel were comfortable enough for him to fall asleep in, in spite of the bumpy ride and the roar of the old engine. 

(An apology came not long after the ride started. Malcolm didn’t seem to remember what triggered his rage all that time ago, but he remembered hitting his old man in the mouth. He didn’t mean it. Most likely. 

But Martin forgave him long before his son said he was sorry.)

“Here we are. Cabin, sweet cabin.” 

And to think that so far, the plan had worked. After another meeting and a few steady weeks of playing nice, Malcolm was free to go. Dear ol’ dad already had the station wagon packed and the old log cabin rented out near the Adirondack Mountains. During the off season, no less, perfect for anyone who didn’t mind the weather or the mud and wanted a bit more privacy than the usual camping season offered. Malcolm climbed out of the car and stared up at the cabin. Two floors, a stone chimney sat on the side, equal parts sagely and humble in its spot in the forest. A couple of steps shuffled forward and he stumbled over a rock or an uneven dip in the ground beneath his boots. At least he didn’t fall. 

The father shut the car off, pocketed the keys, and stepped out. His son continued to stand there, head tipped back to take in the sky and the canopy. The clouds, the song birds, the wind as it tousled the greenery, how the cadence of the forest danced and marched along as though they weren’t there. “You remember this place?”

Malcolm turned back to the older man with a distant look in the eye. “Is this real?”

“Sure is,” Martin replied. Poor thing. Asked about a dozen times and still didn’t seem to believe the man every time he said yes. The father made his way around the car to pop the trunk. “We used to come here a lot when you were younger. Camping was never your mother’s thing. Or Ainsley’s thing. But we never had a problem with that.” The trunk lifted with a soft click. Colorful elastic cords came undone from the rings bolted into the bottom and the pair could have at their belongings. “I figured a trip out here would help you find your way back to your roots, so to speak. Wanna help me carry all this inside?”

The younger blinked once or twice before processing the question. He stumbled back in Martin’s direction, hand on the station wagon for support but ready to help all the same. One duffel back on each shoulder. And the keys to the cabin in hand. He carried them inside and watched the ground as he walked. 

Still too early to see progress. Even the old man knew that, eager and hopeful as he was. No matter. If it couldn’t be paid for with time and patience, then it wasn’t worth having in the first place. He settled on picking up the obscenely bright red cooler and made his way inside. 

Martin took in a deep breath of the stale air and grinned wide when he first stepped into the cabin. Coming back to here felt like coming back home when the idea once sounded impossible. And for all its years of faithful service to campers and hermits alike, the inside was still the same as he remembered it. The wooden furniture, the spots and grooves and little imperfections in the walls, the amber glow of old electric lights. Someone had already come by to stock the wood and clean the brick fireplace. On a whim the man slipped under the stairs into the first floor bedroom. Sure enough, the same patchwork comforters still covered the twin bed and framed pieces of embroidered wildlife hug on the wall. Just as they had been all those years ago. And best of all, not a single swan in sight. 

He stepped out again and looked up to the second floor. Malcolm was already unpacking. The bags sat on the bed in the master bedroom up top and he was loading them into the dresser against the wall. 

A thought struck him and the old man, giddy as a school boy, set the cooler on the kitchen countertop and scurried to the back porch, planting his hands on the railing and not even bothering to close the glass door behind him. Martin came here in the fall once or twice, when the base of the mountains were alive with reds and yellows, punctuated with the occasional tips of evergreen plant life and the song of blue jays and chickadees rang free. But even in the off season, the view was breathtaking. The pine trees, the barest cap of snow on the mountain tops, the swathes of fog, thinning and thickening as they pleased. Even the lake, reflecting a grey sky swollen with rain that hadn’t yet fallen, looked as still and serene as ever. 

Damn. He might have been a murderer, but it was downright _criminal_ that he could forget such a beautiful view. Not even the chill of the air could convince him to go back inside.

The sound of creaking footsteps began again. Malcolm was about to walk back to the car for another load. Martin waved him down. “My boy!”

He stopped in his tracks on the first floor and looked up.

“Come have a look! It’s marvelous out here!”

He shambled out onto the porch and looked down at the swells of earth before them. 

“You smell that?”

“. . . Petrichor.” 

“Yup. And damp pine. I used to love this smell.” He got another lungful just because he couldn’t help himself and let it out with a sound of satisfaction. “You know, those who followed the transcendentalist movement saw time with nature as essential. That it was as dangerous as it was awe-inspiring. That a man couldn’t push through life if they didn’t get to connect with the great outdoors. Not physically, mentally, or spiritually."

Malcolm didn’t argue. He stood and stared at the trees and the fog. 

“They’d be nothing but a shell.” 

No response. 

“I think Emerson and Thoreau really had the right idea coming out to places like this. You know, I think we might have read _Walden_ together when you were little. You remember that?”

Silence. Martin only then realized that Malcolm stepped out without a coat. Wasn’t he cold? 

“Sure, I thought about _Civil Disobedience_. But when you were still so young? Nah. Didn’t want to risk it. If you came away with the wrong idea your mother would have never forgiven me.” 

. . . 

“My boy? Did . . . Did you hear what I said?”

A beat. And the young man turned back inside the house, almost as if on auto pilot. If Martin ever thought seeing his son like this shouldn’t hurt so much, then he was a damn fool. 

* * *

“That asshole needs to quit fucking calling you.”

Malcolm made a motion, a near imperceivable bob of the head, as his smartphone vibrated for the third time in a row. Claremont psychiatric. That former officer, Gil Arroyo. Martin had no doubt in his mind that their talk was the first domino in all this mess. It wasn’t enough that he found his son’s phone number however the hell he did. The bastard was distressing his boy to the point of panic and wasn’t slowing down. Martin noticed the signs, small as they were. The slight widening of the eyes, the beginnings of a hand tremor, the top buttons of the flannel undone to better get in the air he needed. It was plain to see, even with the distance between the dining room table and the kitchen counter.

A notification popped up indicating a missed call. And five seconds later, the vibrating began again. 

“Malcolm, shut that off. Or block the number. I don’t care. He’s a lunatic. And you’re better off without him taking up space in your head.” 

The younger man slowly lifted his head. Must’ve been stuck in his thoughts again. Or off somewhere else. He simply wasn’t present these days. Martin debated taking the phone himself and shutting it off when the vibrating came to a sudden halt. The only sounds left around them was the wind against the walls of the cabin. 

He let the tension melt off his shoulders and went back to slicing vegetables in the air with his hunting knife. Small things. The small things went a long way. Martin could put a decent meal together and Malcolm could consider what was best for his own well being once in a blue moon. Long journeys were made up of small steps all the time. 

This was fine. This was how things were supposed to be. 

By some logic that was so backwards that it came back around to making sense, it seemed. 

The older man heard the rattle of capsules against plastic behind him and glanced over his shoulder to see the other fiddling with orange bottles and white lids. Meds in the evening? That was odd, especially considering the need for antidepressants and SSRIs. Benzos at night might make sense if it was to sleep, but it wasn’t quite that time yet. They still had an hour or so of daylight left. He shook his head, suddenly mindful that he was looking a gift horse in the mouth. Malcolm was taking his meds. He remembered them. It was more Martin’s idea to have them set out on the table but whatever. Malcolm already proved himself capable of violence and of harm to himself. Maybe it was for the best. 

Because why would all this go smoothly?

Maybe Martin was not as patient of a man as he would have liked to think. He moved to change the subject, pausing to talk to Malcolm directly. “Are those your meds?”

Malcolm hummed in affirmation. He stuck a little white tablet into his mouth and crunched down on it like a breath mint. A glass of water sat untouch in front of him. 

“Do you really need five different ones?”

“. . . That’s what they said.”

“How’s all that gonna interact with each other?”

“Dunno.”

The father turned his head quizzically. “Do you even know what you’re taking right now?”

Malcolm picked up the next bottle and turned it over to see the label. “Pills,” he answered. And he popped the white lid off to make a grab for another tablet. A bright red one, much larger than the previous. He chewed on that one, too. 

“Just be careful with that stuff, alright?”

Another hum. Flat. Lifeless. 

The conversation lulled. The pills went silent. And as time went on the ingredients came together, namely in pockets of aluminum foil. Just some potatoes, some onion, butter and spices. Close it all up and let them cook over an open fire. They were camping, after all. And really, an open fire would do just fine for the two of them. As much as it would have been nice to have a sous chef, he would just have to do without for the time being. Malcolm’s cup was empty. Martin knew better than to force him to pour. 

Even if he did miss it. It really was a different time they’d last worked together in the kitchen, all giggles and flour stained shirts and awkwardly sticking fingers in the bowl to chase eggshells. 

He rinsed his hands in the sink and went to prep a couple of salmon fillets he’d laid out to thaw earlier, but a sound made him pause. It was soft. A rumble or a rattle, there for only half a moment but the older man could tell it came from under the floorboards. He discretely checked the clock on the stovetop. Yes, it was about that time for the most recent dose to wear off. Curse him for missing the forest for the trees. It was too early on to let it all fall apart. 

“What was that?”

Martin clenched his jaw. Shit. His ears were old but of course Malcolm could pick up on something like that. Nonetheless, he put up a little show, tilting his head and listening to a sound that wasn’t there in order to sell the idea that the sound wasn’t there. “What was what?” 

“. . . I thought I heard something.” 

“You might have. We do get wild animals around these parts. Bears, cougars, coyotes. Might not be a bad idea to sit outside and just listen to them. Just don’t hurt them and they won’t hurt you.” 

He tore off another sheet of foil and prepped the fish. Strained his ears. Breathed in and held it as the seconds ticked by. 

“Dad, I’m- I’m sorry. I just-” Malcolm sighed “Can I just go to bed?”

Well, there it was. His opportunity to slip into the basement and keep things under wraps. If only his boy didn’t have to look so beat down and broken when he asked. “Of course. I was about to say, you look unwell.” 

“I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh. So you’ve said.” The seasoning process resumed again. “It’s alright. You don’t need my permission. Go get some rest, whatever you need.” 

Malcolm nodded, mouthed “thank you” and stood up. 

“Come eat when you’re ready, alright?”

He went to the guest bedroom and shut the door behind him. The salmon sat in the foil, seasoned halfway and too much for one person to eat. 

There was a sob below the floors of the cabin. A woman. Martin immediately went down to the basement to fix the problem. It wasn’t time. Not yet. 

* * *

Time alone was important for the both of them. But when Martin awoke in the middle of the night, found Malcolm’s bed empty and spotted him outside standing at the edge of the lake, it was about time to draw the line. 

It wasn’t midnight yet. But putting a number to this sort of thing was ridiculous. Martin shoved his boots on his feet, found his coat on the back of a chair of all things, and stumbled out the door into the frigid night. The mud was still there. Always the mud. Off season. It was really starting to piss him off. 

He made his way to the edge of the water. They’d gone fishing on that lake earlier in the day. And it seemed to be fine. The boat didn’t sink, they’d brought a couple of cans of pale ale with them, along with the odd bottle of water and snack bar. And bait. A tackle box stocked with hooks and line and weights and anything else they could possibly need on a boat in the middle of a clear body of water. And all was well. As well as Martin could expect it to be. 

Until the younger man somehow managed to get a hook stuck in his hand, sat there in the boat and watched as his hand bled. Like he didn’t even feel it. 

Malcolm stood at the edge of the lake with two hands on the middle buttons of his flannel in the middle of the night. His shoes were off, sat neatly together just out of reach of the water. Once again, no sign of a coat in sight. The father marched up to him without a hint of restraint. 

“Malcolm Whitly, what the hell are you doing out here?”

He didn’t startle. Just looked up and watched Martin come up to meet him. 

“Really? You have _nothing_ to say? No, ‘Hi dad,’ ‘Sorry to scare you dad,’ ‘Woah, chill out dad, I’m just getting some air, that’s all,’ ‘Hey, I’m having a tough time right now, can we talk for a sec dad?’ ‘You know what, I don’t think this is working, dad. Can we just go home?’ None of that?” 

. . . 

“Do you even give enough of a shit to say, ‘Leave me alone’?”

. . . 

Martin forced out a laugh. “You know, you make it pretty difficult to help you when you just refuse the help you’re given. You know that, right?” No response. He didn’t wait long enough to hear one. The indignance had more than enough time to build and boil over. “Ok, ok. Fine! I’m a doctor. But I don’t know better. There! I said it! Specialized practice and all that bullshit. Maybe I don’t know what you need because I’m a cardiothoracic surgeon and neurology isn’t my thing and it was a stupid theory to begin with but-” Malcolm didn’t say anything and the fucking damn burst- “Fuck! We’re family, Malcolm! I’ve been there since before you were born!”

. . .

“Your mother and I loved you before _anyone_ else! I know you better than _anyone_!”

. . . 

“What am I supposed to do, Malcolm?! Please! Tell me what I’m supposed to do!”

His hands left the middle buttons of his shirt and hovered in the air. 

“Should I have left you in that hospital? Is that what you want?!”

Martin stopped to catch his breath and the horror of what he’d said came oozing in. Enough time had passed for old eyes to adjust and take in more light from the moon. Malcolm had been outside in the cold long enough for his lips to turn blue. His skin had gone more pale. Shivers barely wracked his body but were there nonetheless. Or maybe they were shakes. Tremors. From what? Anxiety? Not eating? The only thing he’d seen him eat was a few strands of licorice from the store they stopped at before arriving at the cabin. 

Hell, he was less and less stable every day it seemed, getting sicker and sicker before the father’s eyes and he yelled at his boy, reprimanded him for not getting better fast enough. Said all those horrible, _horrible_ things. 

“Oh, Malcolm- God, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me but that wasn’t right. I’m sorry.”

A nonchalant shrug. “You might be right though.”

“That’s not the point!” He smeared his hands over his face, fisted his hair, covered his eyes. As though he were an ant writhing under the burn of a magnifying glass. “Just, please. Talk to me. I can’t watch you fall apart like this anymore.” 

That was it. He was lost. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know better than the psych ward staff. He didn’t know his own flesh and blood enough to help. What was it? Why did he do all this? Was it love? Was it narcissism? Had the social workers and critics been right all along? Should he have listened? All those years ago, before he decided that he wanted a family, before he could have even considered that he couldn’t give them what they needed? 

Was the rescue fantasy all he cared for? 

Maybe Martin just didn’t know how to be a person. Didn’t know what a person needed, didn’t know the nuances of how a person could hurt. Didn’t know how to love. Of course. How could a serial killer know how to love another person? How could a psychopath know how to love another person? 

“. . . Thanks, dad.”

His voice was so soft. So exhausted. Martin slowly pulled his hands out of his hair to face the younger man. He was smiling. Or rather, trying to. He couldn’t quite pull up the corners of his mouth all the way, like a shirt that was too big and baggy to wear. 

“I appreciate you taking me out here for all this. I really do. It was nice. I almost had fun.” Another shrug. “It’s not you, though. It’s me. It’s all . . . signals. In my brain. I can’t help it. But I hope you had fun. I know you always loved camping.” He paused and went back to staring out at the water. “Maybe I could have tried a little harder to have fun. Make it last. Make it mean something.”

It was the tone of voice. The exhaustion, the reach for something happy that didn’t quite make it. And the finality. He was talking like this was the last time they would be talking. “What are you trying to say?”

“What if I went out to the lake and just kept walking? Didn’t come up for air. You think I’d feel it?” 

His heart nearly stopped at those words. “Is that what you came out here to do?”

No reply. The only answer to the father’s question was the sound of the lake water quietly lapping at the shore. The edge of it just barely reached Malcolm’s bare feet. 

“You know what? This sounds . . . It sounds like you have a plan. And that you’re serious. And I think it would be a good idea if we put those plans off for a little bit. Five minutes. Just five minutes. Or you know what? Better yet? Ten minutes. That’s enough to see if you’ll change your mind or not. Look! We-” Martin fumbled for his smart phone in his coat pocket. “We- we- can set a timer and everything. Just stay. Please. Stay. Stay for me.”

Silence. His boy shrugged and went back to watching the lake. Almost as though it didn’t matter either way. 

Maybe there really was no other option at this point. This wasn’t the plan, but to hell with the plan. This was life or death now. “Malcolm, I want you to come to the basement with me.”

“. . . Why?”

“Just trust me,” he answered. “Please. Get your shoes on.” 

Never before had his slow movements been so terrifying. But sure enough he reached down for his shoes and slipped them on. 

The pair began their trek back to the cabin as the timer ticked down. Up the cabin, away from the front porch and around the side to a large steel basement door. He didn’t miss the look of confusion on his boy’s face when the key slid into the lock. But he followed his old man into the basement all the same. Martin could hear his footsteps echo off the walls of the cellar stairwell. 

“Close that up, will you?”

And Malcolm did with a heavy, resounding _boom_ . Darkness shrouded them before an overhead lamp clicked on with the distinct _cha-chack_ of a tiny, bead-like cable. 

The air was stale and musty. Dust collected abundantly on every bookshelf and stool in the basement. Old curtains hung from railings bolted to the ceiling. It all looked untouched except for a box in the middle of the concrete floor and a tool bench laid out with knives, syringes and more. Even a bone saw had already been plugged into the electric outlet. 

Malcolm stood on the last steps of the staircase, hand on the railing, immediately wary of his surroundings. He stared at the trunk in the corner of the room for a long while. Maybe he remembered. 

“I was hoping we could save this for the end of the trip, but I think now is as good a time as any.” Martin busied himself with the latches. “You were a smart boy, you know. Almost got me back in ‘98. Which, yeah. I stole the cookie from the cookie jar and didn’t get caught. Of course I’m happy about it. But if that has to end tonight, then it has to end tonight.” Two hands. He hoisted the woman up by her bindings and dragged her out of the box and onto the cold, hard floor. She lay motionless, stripped down to her undergarments, sores and scars from heavy heroin use clearly visible. Really, it was unfortunate that they all came to be in this place. Unlucky coincidences. Nothing personal. 

Martin spotted the hand tremor out of the corner of his eyes. He went to one tool, old and not quite able to hold the light as well as the newer blade. 

Malcolm wandered out to the middle of the floor. “Dad, what is this? _Who_ is this?”

His old scalpel. Simple, discrete. A faithful companion that served him well in many years of service. He took the shaky hand and pressed the knife into his son’s palm. Cold handle into warm skin. Malcolm’s fingers curled around it as he struggled to make sense of what was going on. Martin just told him the truth, plain and simple. “The ultimate thrill. And she’s your ticket.”

It was selfish to take a life. Selfish to take a life for the excitement and the adrenaline, selfish to take your own and leave behind everyone who ever loved you or cared about you. There was only one victim in the Surgeon’s decades long career who was ready for the end. She begged for it. Insisted that it had to happen. That she was weak and a coward and didn’t have the strength to go on anymore. She couldn’t even reach for peace. For death on her own terms. Martin was a savior sent just for her, as far as she was concerned. 

Maritza Palmer. That was her name. She dyed her hair but hadn’t touched up her roots in what must have been weeks. And her blood. She bled so thin. Slurred her words and cried until she was shriveled and dry. 

The Surgeon had spared a life only one other time and it didn’t even matter. Her name and smiling face appeared in the obituary within the week. 

In the basement of the upstate New York cabin, Malcolm pushed the tool back in his father’s hands. 

And then he walked towards the woman. 

Slowly, the soles of his boots dragged across the ground. He stared down at her as the gears turned with renewed fury in his mind. She was crying. Found a way to cry in spite of the drugs pumping through her system, looked up at her visitor through weary, half-open slits. Maybe she knew it was time. Maybe Malcolm was trying to put it off for just a little while longer. Tried to take in the details he could. Her brown eyes, her brittle hair splayed out across the concrete. She would have been beautiful if she were healthier. 

The woman hadn’t had food or water for days. A kill couldn’t have been made any easier. One simply needed to reach out and take. 

Malcolm straddled the woman, weight on his knees, and secured his hands around her throat. Soundlessly, he squeezed, tighter and tighter, until the woman tipped her head back and began to flail. Frankly, it was more like a jerking motion. The drugs hadn’t worn off yet. Her fight had been mostly contained to her shoulders and torso while her arms and legs lay leadened on the concrete. A desperate grunt tried and failed to rake up her throat. All this time and she still had some fight in her. The biological need to be alive was a powerful force indeed. 

Malcolm’s choice in method made sense. Strangulation in his case suggested that he was, for all the time he had worked with the NYPD, a novice when it came to the act or murder. Strangulation was simple. Just close up the windpipe and wait. And yet there was a sense of calm as her movements weakened as her body tried and failed to function off dwindling oxygen. It might have even been beautiful. The skin to skin contact, being close enough to watch the light in her eyes die, to feel her pulse still and fade beneath his fingertips. Holding something as brilliant and fragile as a human life right there in his hands. The intimacy of such an act was unparalleled. 

Minutes ticked by slowly. She stopped moving but he didn’t let go. He understood what he had to do. Why the three of them were in the basement and why the phone call of 1998 wasn’t completely baseless. That the father and son weren’t so different. That as lost as his boy was, something still kept them connected. 

At long last the young man pulled his hands away. Bruises encircled the pale skin of the victim’s neck. Finally, he reached down to her eyelids and gently pulled them with two fingers. The basement felt a little colder with one less life. 

Funny. A murderer with respect for the dead. Admirable as it was ironic. 

The timer went off. Their ten minutes were up. Martin shut it off and knelt by his son. “Hey. Come on, Kiddo, look at me. You with me?” 

More silence. More of the same, except the last ten minutes couldn’t have been more ground-breaking, more earth-shattering. Martin reached out to the back of Malcolm’s neck, gently sliding his fingertips over the skin but not making the full move to hold on. 

Something flickered in his boy, like the first star to come out as dusk became night.

“Malcolm, please, say something.”

He went through the motions, of course. Looking around the room, staring down at his hands. Curling and uncurling like he was trying to find his grip on her throat again. In the time they had spent indoors some color had returned to Malcolm’s face. And then his eyes. Searching, pupils still dilated from the intensity of the act. 

He mumbled something. 

“ . . . Malcolm? Can you repeat that for me, please?”

He turned his head just slightly and looked his father in the eye. “Did you feel that?”

“Like the world bursting with color? Like touching down in Oz for the first time?” 

“. . . No.”

Martin held his breath. Maybe it didn’t work. 

Maybe he failed. 

Maybe he couldn’t save his boy. 

Maybe nothing could. 

And then a fresh wave of tears started to fall. 

“It felt like having a heartbeat again,” Malcolm admitted. His voice quivered with more emotion than he had seen in weeks. He reached up to dry up the hot dampness streaking down his cheeks, even though he couldn’t stop crying. “It felt like breathing again. Like I was _whole_ and _alive_ -”

Martin pulled his only son in and held him in his arms, felt him clutch at the coat on his back and hold on. Felt him sob and shake in his grip, whole and there and alive. Solid, heart beating, lungs and mouth breathing, arms squeezing around him like he finally gave a shit that he was drowning and saw that he was being thrown a ring or a life raft. And he finally _took_ and _grabbed on_. Apologies spilled out. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Neither of them kept track of who said it or what it was for. 

After all, he was still here. Everything else was a footnote. The body, the basement, the cabin. The cold night that Malcolm almost didn’t come back from. 

“D-Dad . . .”

“It’s alright, my boy. Everything’s going to be alright. I promise.” 

* * *

He wanted to bury the body. Properly, or at least the closest they could get to a proper burial. 

Martin could respect that, of course. The first one is always special. And frightening. More importantly, this was one of those rare instances in which they could afford it and not get caught. He’d done a bit of a poor man’s background check. Their victim had been a ward of the state for many years. Hopped from foster to foster home, from shelter to shelter. Likely never enough to make any meaningful connection to anyone who might go looking for her. 

Maybe shoveling a fresh grave under the rise of the mountains at three in the morning was the kindest thing anyone had ever done for her. 

“Son?”

Malcolm looked up. The edge of the hole he’d been digging came up to his waist and a sheen of sweat glistened in the light of the moon. Labored breathing from the arduous task came out in white clouds, clearly visible in the light of the lantern they brought. He listened. More importantly, he had the sense to layer up before they left the cabin. 

“You ready to switch?”

“Uh . . .” He let his arms hang loose, still gripped onto the shovel. “I can keep going.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” He went back to digging.

“Because you’ve been awfully quiet. And I was hoping to check in with you, make sure you were alright.”

Malcolm struck the shovel into the dirt, but didn’t lift. He looked back up to his father. The whites of his eyes were still red from crying earlier. Still. A few hours had passed since he killed her. That was plenty of time for the weight of things to sink in. 

“Do you want to talk about what happened? I know the first time can be intense. And maybe a little confusing.”

The young man didn’t move at first. He pulled the tool back out and stood at his full length. His expression tightened just a hair as he did so. The toiling must’ve already put strain on his back (he was at that age, after all). Malcolm surveyed the hole in the ground. Then the body, still tucked under the tarp in the back of the car, and then the canopy of upstate New York. Finally, he stuck the shovel vertically into the earth and crossed his arms over the handle, thoughtful. “What if I called the cops on you?”

Now there was a thought. 

“You’ve been killing for years. Decades, even. And I have proof now. There’s gotta be at least something to put you away.”

Martin cocked his head. “Have you called them yet?”

“No.”

“Are you planning to?”

No answer. 

Martin stretched his arms above his head and settled back against the body of the station wagon, arms tucked into the pockets of his old leather coat. “If you’re going to do it then do it. I knew the risks long before I told you the truth.” Fifty murders. He had a good run, after all. “If you feel inclined to report me, then fine. I’m old, Malcolm. Life sentence, execution. Doesn’t make much of a difference to me anymore. Besides, I think it was worth it.”

Malcolm frowned. “How so?”

“You’re my son. And I’d give up anything for you. Same as I would for your sister and your mother.” 

His eyes and his attention listed to the edge of the grave he was digging. He shoveled a few more mounds of dirt and stopped again. “. . . We’re talking about murder.”

“Among other things, yes. We are.” Maybe even the same way some would talk about sports. Martin thought about picking his words carefully, but shut the idea down. Honesty and simplicity. That was all the two of them needed. “You had some rather noteworthy commentary back there. Like how your heartbeat and your breathing felt like they belonged to you again and that you felt whole. Can you explain what you meant by that?”

Malcolm tapped his finger against the opposite elbow. He was . . . fidgety. Barely teetering into animated. Nervous, pensive maybe. Several seconds passed filled only with the hoots and howls of beasts that made the night their own and he spoke. “I told you that it felt like I died in that elevator shaft, right?”

There it was. Finally. “You did.” When Malcolm first mentioned it he was quite convinced that he died in that elevator shaft. The visit after he insisted on it and became violent when the contrary was suggested. Funny how the most calm he sounded when he was digging someone’s grave. 

“That’s how I’ve felt ever since we caught the Bowery Ripper.” he continued. “Like I’m in a dream and I can’t wake up. Or like I’m . . . I don’t know, a passenger. In my own body. And I’m moving from point A to point B in a world that I’m not a part of. But then sometimes it’s the complete opposite. I’ll feel terrified for no reason and everything turns on me. Like the hand tremor and the panic attacks. Feeling like I'm trapped or the rest of me is going to die and it’ll be for good. Those things never happened to me before that case.”

Hand tremor. Panic attacks. Indeed, those were new. “Sounds like it’s about control, my boy. In an out-of-control world. Having something that’s yours when everything else seems to be slipping away. Or something that will always make sense when nothing else does.” 

Malcolm held out his hand in front of him. Curled and uncurled his fingers. Observed the motion. “I guess so.” There was a long pause. “It’s kind of like being trapped in a movie theatre. You’re sitting there, watching the big screen. And it’s just movies about your life. About you living your life while you- the real you- just sits and watches. Because it's not real. It’s just pictures and sounds.” 

Like nothing is real. Martin couldn’t imagine such a thing, but it certainly sounded terrifying. Even being the way he was, he never doubted for a second that the world around him or the people in his life were real. His family, his colleagues. Even his victims. Blood and screams and the light as it slowly flickered out and died. What could be more real than that? “What changed?”

“Dunno. Just . . . Everything suddenly came into focus. It all lined up. I didn’t have to think. I could just be. At least for a little while. But now I’m back to feeling disconnected, so I don’t know if it worked or not. It’s all just sounds and pictures again.” The conversation didn’t have time to lull before Malcolm’s face went white. Panic and terror gripped him once again. Maybe this was the beginning of one of the panic attacks he said he had. “I can’t come back from this, can I?” Malcolm looked up to his father like a scared, lost child. “I’m a murderer now. No matter what I do or where I do, that’s going to follow me. That’s real, regardless of what I think.” 

Ah, right. Murder. The end of another life. Martin was a seasoned veteran by now but Malcolm just had his first. It was a big decision to make, especially when you weren’t used to making it. And he was right. Things would never be the same again. Yes, he was a murderer now. Yes, he would have to live with it. 

“Oh God, how am I supposed to go back to the NYPD after this?”

“We can unpack that later.” You can’t bring the dead back, after all. There was no point in worrying about the woman. She wasn’t in any pain anymore anyways. “Frankly, there’s a more pressing matter that needs to be addressed.”

“More pressing than being a- How, dad? _How?!_ ”

“Because it’s the whole reason I shared this with you in the first place.” The father walked up to the edge of the hole and knelt down into the dirt. “Killing her. Did it help you? Yes or no?”

Malcolm was a bright one. And he was also a very kind soul. Always had been, even as a toddler giving the candy he found on Easter egg hunts to kids who didn’t find as much. Even as a child who got into fights when he saw his classmates picked on and bullied, even as a college student and a detective who saw how lucky he was and how feeling safe was a luxury that not everyone had. Sometimes he’d lose sleep over it. Sometimes he couldn’t eat. He was damn sure to get himself hurt in the process. 

Malcolm never had to think much when it came to others but he always treated his own needs as unapproachable. As an uncomfortable ordeal. And here he was having ended a human life for his own gain. So the father could completely understand when Malcolm finally spoke up. 

“. . . I don’t know yet.” 

“Well, think about it. There’s no rush to find the answer.” He stood up again with a grunt and dusted off the dirt. “I still don’t quite understand it, but I’m still gonna be there. Your old man’s not giving up on you any time soon. Remember that.” 

“But what if I need it? What it’s the only way to feel alive again?”

“Then it’s your choice. Do it again if you want and don’t if you’d rather not. I didn’t share that to try and convert you. What matters is that you feel like you again and you stick around long enough to see things get better.”

No protest. His mouth opened and closed over and over again but he couldn’t say anything. 

“You gave me a hell of a scare when you started saying the things you were saying at the lake. You know that, right?” 

Malcolm looked down. His fingers curled and uncurled around the length of the shovel and he ran his hand through his hair. He was ashamed. And guilty. What for? He was in a dark place. He didn’t know how to get out. Martin just stepped in to drop a rope down into the hole and ask his boy to climb up. It happened. It was a part of life. What was wrong with that? Was that a sin of some kind? The thought crossed his mind that maybe that was the reason. That Malcolm thought he put something so heavy out there that no one needed to hear, forever tainted the image of being the perfect first born son of the perfect Whitly family. “ _I’m fine_ ,” he’d kept trying to say. 

And that just wasn’t right at all. Imagine the state of things if family was all about what you owed or what you were entitled to. Or what you should or shouldn’t be.

Martin huffed. What a sad way to live. 

“Well, it doesn’t matter. Just come to me next time you start thinking about doing something like that. For now, we can finish up here and head back to the cabin. Have breakfast, put on some coffee. Maybe watch the sunrise. That sound nice?”

Malcolm considered his words and, finally, nodded. And for the first time in what felt like forever, he let himself smile. “. . . Yeah. It does. I think I might even be hungry.” The shoveling resumed again. 

Martin felt relief for the first time in that whole trip. Malcolm didn’t need dad’s approval on that. Wellness was its own reward. And that was all a father could ask for when it came to his family. Martin busied himself with the tarp in the trunk and brought out the body for easy loading into the ground. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, you. 
> 
> Yeah, you. 
> 
> People care about you. You have friends and family who love you and want to see you be healthy and strong. If you or a loved one are in a dark place, reach out. You are loved and life gets better if you stick it out long enough to see it get better. 
> 
> National Suicide Prevention Lifeline  
> 1-800-273-8255 (1-800-273-TALK)  
> Veterans in crisis, press “1” to be directed to local VA resources  
> En Español, call 1-888-628-9454
> 
> Crisis Text Line  
> Text HOME to 741-741


End file.
